# How would an Iowa-class battleship fare against this kind of beating?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 2, 2011, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916 "2011-09-02T03:10:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/1 "2011-09-02T03:10:47Z")
The largest battleship ever built, the Yamato, met its fate at the hands of hundreds of carrier aircraft that attacked it relentlessly. So one-sided was this beating, I’ve read reports only something like _ten_ american planes were shot down in the raids :eek: But for all the impressiveness of its size, technology-wise it was still behind modern American battleships, with their radar fire control and radar-fuzed antiaircraft shells.
Later in the war many battleships saw a role in being AA platforms against japanese strikes/kamikazes. Despite the notion that battleships are supposed to be vulnerable to carrier aircraft, the _American_ battleships, when battle-ready (ie not sitting vulnerable in Pearl Harbor) seemed surprisingly effective at holding their own.
So I’m curious how an Iowa-class battleship would fare running the same gauntlet the Yamato did. The Iowa’s guns are more accurate, it has better radar, and better damage control. Granted with a concentrated enough attack, its fate would be inevitable, but how much better would it fare than the Yamato?
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/2 "2011-09-02T03:21:50Z")
Iowa would be sunk.
Historically the Yamato and her sister ship Mushashi took a dozen bomb and torpedo hits be fire sinking, that us brutal punishment and no ship ever built can hope to survive the same.
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/3 "2011-09-02T04:03:02Z")
The much more powerful AA suite would certainly take a big toll of her attackers, but given enough time and planes she’s toast.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/4 "2011-09-02T04:04:40Z")
The German battleship Bismarck was supposedly hit 300-400 time and by several torpedoes as well.
Almost nothing did major damage except another battleship’s guns.
Some say that after all that the ship was scuttled by the crew.
Make no mistake 300-400 hits caused extensive damage and made the ship unable to fight but just noting these ships are insanely strong.
> [@](#):
>
> Ballard’s survey found no underwater penetrations of the ship’s fully-armoured citadel. Eight holes were found in the hull, one on the starboard side and seven on the port side, all above the waterline. One of the holes is in the deck, on the starboard side of the bow. The angle and shape indicates it was fired from Bismarck’s port side and struck the starboard anchor chain. The anchor chain has disappeared down this hole.[114] Six holes are amidships, three shell fragments pierced the upper splinter belt, and one made a hole in the main armour belt.[115] Further aft a huge hole is visible, parallel to the aircraft catapult, on the deck. It is unclear whether this was a result of an internal magazine explosion due to a shell penetration of the ship’s armour. The submersibles recorded no sign of a shell penetration through the main or side armour that could have caused this; it is likely that the shell penetrated the deck armour only.[116] Huge dents showed that many of the 14 inch (356 mm) shells fired by King George V bounced off the German belt armour.[117]
>
> Ballard noted that he found no evidence of the internal implosions that occur when a hull that is not fully flooded sinks. The surrounding water, which has much greater pressure than the air in the hull, would crush the ship. Instead, Ballard points out that the hull is in relatively good condition; he states simply that “Bismarck did not implode.”[118] This suggests that Bismarck’s compartments were flooded when the ship sank, supporting the scuttling theory.
>
> SOURCE: [German battleship Bismarck - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck#Discovery_by_Robert_Ballard)
I would expect an Iowa Class to perform about the same.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/5 "2011-09-02T04:28:46Z")
Three or four hundred torpedo hits? Yeah God could save such a doomed ship, but even HE would find it a challenge.
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### Author:  [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/6 "2011-09-02T10:38:01Z")
An Iowa class ship would have been sunk much more easily than Yamato. The radar directed AA guns could be expected to take a heavier toll on the attackers, but both the radar and the guns themselves could be easily knocked out by bombing. Also, the underwater protection of the Iowa class did not perform as designed, they would not have stood up well to multiple torpedo hits. Yamato had marginal protection against 1,000 lb bombs, but the Iowa class has less deck armour, so there is much more chance of a bomb causing flooding, starting a fire or damaging something vital.
Comparisons with the Bismarck encounter are not very meaningful, as the British battleships were firing into her strongest armour. Later in the war, Tirpitz was nearly sunk with 500 lb bombs.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/7 "2011-09-02T10:54:31Z")
> [@AK84](#):
>
> Three or four hundred torpedo hits? Yeah God could save such a doomed ship, but even HE would find it a challenge.
I did not say, “Three or four hundred **torpedo** hits”.
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### Author:  [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/8 "2011-09-02T11:07:51Z")
yamato and iowa were both superbattleships outfitted to resist air attack and at the time (1945) a torpedo plane would would be have been insane to attempt a torpedo run. it will get mangled by all those AA guns. a torpedo plane has to get within a mile of a target to make an accurate launch.
for both yamato and musashi, it took more than 20 aerial bombs from dive bombers to basically knock out most of their anti-aircraft guns. both were far from sunk at that point but the damage allowed the torpedo bombers to get in their torps. and mind you, each japanese BB required a dozen torps to go under.
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### Author:  [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/9 "2011-09-02T12:44:17Z")
**Whack a Mole** - could I just query your source of 300 to 400 hits? Bismarck copped a pounding no doubt, but I doubt that that figure in decent size weaponry (ie not machine gun rounds- that is silly but an example) ever hit her.
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### Author:  [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/10 "2011-09-02T12:57:22Z")
Whack a Mole- the board is playing up tonight and wouldn’t let me clarify why I was querying the numbers you quote.
Firstly if any battle ship had been hit by that number of heavy shells she would be toast.
Secondly, I doubt the British ships had enough ammunition to score that many hits given that thehit rate for heavy naval guns was around 5%. To score 300 hits they would have had to fire 6000 heavy shells at her.
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### Author:  [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/11 "2011-09-02T13:22:53Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#):
>
> The German battleship Bismarck was supposedly hit 300-400 time and by several torpedoes as well.
It would never have had to take that sort of punishment had it not been for scrawny little biplanes and a dinky torpedo hitting the rudder. The aircraft still won because without them the ship never gets caught.
No battleship could stand up to sustained aerial attack. The sinking of _Prince of Wales_ and _Repulse_ finished off that idea for good. Also, the _Iowa_s are designated “fast battleships”, which means that they traded tonnage (read: armor) for speed, not quite as dramatically as the battlecruisers of old but when we’re discussing a no-compromise battleship like the _Yamato_ and its fate it’s silly to think that the _Iowa_s would do better. They wouldn’t have a chance.
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### Author:  [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/12 "2011-09-02T13:42:50Z")
[
> [@Cicero](#):
>
> Whack a Mole- the board is playing up tonight and wouldn’t let me clarify why I was querying the numbers you quote.
>
> Firstly if any battle ship had been hit by that number of heavy shells she would be toast.
I think I can clear up the confusion. Bismarck does have that many holes in her, but not all were caused by heavy shells. Much of the ship was unarmoured, light shells made many of them. Also, fragments of exploding shells could punch multiple holes. There were few penetrations of the armoured citadel.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/13 "2011-09-02T15:04:52Z")
> [@Cicero](#):
>
> **Whack a Mole** - could I just query your source of 300 to 400 hits? Bismarck copped a pounding no doubt, but I doubt that that figure in decent size weaponry (ie not machine gun rounds- that is silly but an example) ever hit her.
> [@Cicero](#):
>
> Whack a Mole- the board is playing up tonight and wouldn’t let me clarify why I was querying the numbers you quote.
>
> Firstly if any battle ship had been hit by that number of heavy shells she would be toast.
>
> Secondly, I doubt the British ships had enough ammunition to score that many hits given that thehit rate for heavy naval guns was around 5%. To score 300 hits they would have had to fire 6000 heavy shells at her.
My original source for the number seems to be offline but I found another source:
> [@](#):
>
> A total of 2,876 shells were fired at Bismarck from 0847-1019, most at relatively close ranges (see Table 4). During that time, it is possible that as many as 300-400 shells hit the German ship. Why did she not blow up and sink?
>
> SOURCE: [http://www.navweaps.com/index\_inro/INRO\_Bismarck\_p2.htm](http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Bismarck_p2.htm)
Also, remember how many ships were engaged with the Bismarck at the end.
I am not sure how many were present in the final battle but it wasn’t just one ship.
Several ships firing a few thousand rounds (of all sorts) is not hard to imagine.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/14 "2011-09-02T15:15:41Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#):
>
> It would never have had to take that sort of punishment had it not been for scrawny little biplanes and a dinky torpedo hitting the rudder. The aircraft still won because without them the ship never gets caught.
I would not call those torpedoes “dinky”.
I agree it was those pokey Swordfish bi-planes which won the day. IIRC (sorry no cite) the AA gun sights on the Bismarck were calibrated for modern planes which were faster. As a result their aim was mucked-up on the (relatively) slow moving WWI era biplanes and they were able to get close.
That said you have to admit those planes got lucky and that one torpedo was a massively lucky hit. The Bismarck was struck in its Achille’s Heel (the rudder). Had that torpedo hit anywhere else the ship almost certainly would have escaped.
Note I am not saying planes aren’t lethal to surface ships. They are. Of course in the Pacific it wasn’t as if the Japanese didn’t throw gobs of planes at surface ships and generally they got reamed.
> [@](#):
>
> The Battle of the Philippine Sea was a decisive naval battle of World War II, and the largest aircraft carrier battle in history. It was fought between United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Combined Fleet. Part of the wider Pacific War, this action occurred on June 19–20, 1944 off the Mariana Islands and also involved Japanese land-based aircraft. The engagement proved disastrous for the Imperial Japanese Navy, which lost three aircraft carriers and some 550–645 aircraft,[1]. It was termed by Americans the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.
>
> SOURCE: [Battle of the Philippine Sea - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Philippine_Sea)
There are various reasons for the above but the point I am trying to make is planes do not equal an automatic trump card versus surface ships. It was still a difficult thing for planes to sink ships.
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/15 "2011-09-02T15:58:05Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#):
>
> No battleship could stand up to sustained aerial attack. The sinking of _Prince of Wales_ and _Repulse_ finished off that idea for good. Also, the _Iowa_s are designated “fast battleships”, which means that they traded tonnage (read: armor) for speed, not quite as dramatically as the battlecruisers of old but when we’re discussing a no-compromise battleship like the _Yamato_ and its fate it’s silly to think that the _Iowa_s would do better. They wouldn’t have a chance.
Agreed that the Iowas would be toast as well, but I don’t know where you got that notion about their armor. [This site has a wonderful comparison](http://www.combinedfleet.com/b_armor.htm) of all post-treaty BBs, and grades the Yamatos as a 10-and the Iowas as 9.5’s. The latter compensated for the former’s “brute force” approach via sloped armor, hardened STS steel (which only the US could afford to use extensively), and good workmanship (the Yamatos had a flaw in their belts which could mean they would “split” lengthwise upon heavy impacts in the wrong spots). The Americans also built very efficient power plants, which meant more weight and room for armor as compared to contemporaries (the Yamatos’ engines were very inefficient and fuel-hungry).
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### Author:  [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/16 "2011-09-02T16:44:16Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#):
>
> Agreed that the Iowas would be toast as well, but I don’t know where you got that notion about their armor. [This site has a wonderful comparison](http://www.combinedfleet.com/b_armor.htm) of all post-treaty BBs, and grades the Yamatos as a 10-and the Iowas as 9.5’s. The latter compensated for the former’s “brute force” approach via sloped armor, hardened STS steel (which only the US could afford to use extensively), and good workmanship (the Yamatos had a flaw in their belts which could mean they would “split” lengthwise upon heavy impacts in the wrong spots). The Americans also built very efficient power plants, which meant more weight and room for armor as compared to contemporaries (the Yamatos’ engines were very inefficient and fuel-hungry).
When we’re talking about aircraft belt armor is virtually irrelevant. Their deck armor was much less, and was a concern during World War II when aerial bombardment, previously not considered a big problem, became the biggest threat to battleships.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/17 "2011-09-02T16:50:43Z")
The point about the Philippine Sea raises the question, though, of how we’re constructing our hypothetical scenario.
If you’re just plunking USS Iowa in the bombsights of an effectively limitless number of bombers - which is pretty much the situation Yamato was in - of course she’s headed for Davy Jones’s locker. The advanced WWII battleships were marvels of engineering but if you can just bomb the snot out of one all day it’s going down. Iowa perhaps shoots down 20 planes instead of ten, but she’s still doomed.
Situations were ships proved effectively resistant to aerial attack were situations where they either had air cover or were accompanied by OTHER ships with effective AA capabilities. Sinking Iowa if she’s alone or close to it is one thing; sinking her if she’s in a task force of 20 ships with oodles and scads of flak guns, and you ran into a squadrons of fighters on your way there, is a different story.
When sunk, Yamato was escorted by one cruiser and eight destroyers, a relatively light AA capability and no air cover at all. The first wave to attack them had almost three hundred aircraft. The deciding assault involved a simultaneous attack of dive bombers and torpedo bombers attacking, quite literally, from every direction. It was a horrible mismatch, and Iowa would have done only marginally better before cracking out the lifeboats.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/18 "2011-09-02T16:51:37Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#):
>
> When we’re talking about aircraft belt armor is virtually irrelevant. Their deck armor was much less, and was a concern during World War II when aerial bombardment, previously not considered a big problem, became the biggest threat to battleships.
I thought deck armor was a concern.
Depending how you fire your gun you can arc the projectile onto the target and get a plunging shot.
I thought this is what did in the HMS Hood. A plunging shot penetrated the deck armor (which, IIRC, was ironically due for an upgrade) and hit a magazine causing the ship to detonate.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/19 "2011-09-02T16:52:40Z")
The chances of being hit by a plunging shot are a lot less then the chances of being bombed by a plane.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2011, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-an-iowa-class-battleship-fare-against-this-kind-of-beating/594916/20 "2011-09-02T17:02:01Z")
> [@AK84](#):
>
> The chances of being hit by a plunging shot are a lot less then the chances of being bombed by a plane.
Planes missed (in WWII at least) a helluva lot more than they hit.
Note **RickJay** ’s bit about three hundred planes attacking the Yamato at once. How many bombs was she hit by?
Granted it doesn’t take very many but out of 300 attackers (and that in just one sortie…I think there was more than one sortie) only a relative handful of bombs and torpedoes struck.
Obviously things are different today with smart bombs and missiles. Of course that works both ways…the ship can shoot guided missiles back at the planes.
Bottom line is hitting a ship, as big as they seem, is pretty hard with unguided munitions of any sort. They more played a numbers game. Fling enough shit at something and sooner or later something will stick.
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